The Voyage to Magical North

Twelve-year-olds Brine, a magician's servant, and Peter, the magician's apprentice, fight a lot -- especially when a botched attempt to disrupt their master's plan to marry off Peter and send away Brine leaves the two of them adrift in a rowboat, lost at sea. Their luck turns, however, when they are rescued by pirate captain Cassie O'Pia and her crew aboard the Onion, famed for, among other things, defeating Marfak West, "the evilest magician the world has ever known." But Marfak West wasn't actually killed, as the crew discovers when he shows up (in disguise) and tries to scam them into taking an expedition to Magical North -- where, incidentally, there happens to be quite a bit of gold. This pirate yarn rollicks with the best of them, led by the convincingly legendary Cassie but handily assisted by Peter's magic and Brine's quick thinking. Fayers's fantastical world -- complete with invisible polar bears, man-eating penguins, and vengeful whales -- makes the voyage north fraught with dangers, but the crew is stout-hearted and true and quite funny, and Brine's quest to discover where she comes from lends depth to the madcap events. And while there's more than a little flirtation with metafiction (e.g., each chapter opens with snippets from characters' written works that put some spin on whatever calamity is currently in the offing), the result is not to distance readers but rather to entrench them more firmly in Fayers's fantasy. anita l. burkamSeptember/October 2016 p 106

Twelve-year-olds Brine and Peter find themselves adrift in a rowboat, lost at sea. Their luck turns when they are rescued by pirate captain Cassie O'Pia and her crew aboard the Onion. Fayers's fantastical world--complete with invisible polar bears and man-eating penguins--makes the ship's voyage fraught with dangers, but the crew is stout-hearted and quite funny. This pirate yarn rollicks with the best of them.